


Grace

by alinewrites



Category: Kasabian
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 20:05:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alinewrites/pseuds/alinewrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I don't know what to say about this. It just sprung to life.<br/>Probably a shrewd reader will recognize some of my obsessions. I don't!<br/>No sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shimere277](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shimere277/gifts).



“Where did it go wrong?” Serge kept asking Amy all those months. “When did I fuck up?”

And of course there was no answer to this. Amy would only shrug and leave him to his anger, just like she did with Ennio.

After Kasabian split Serge kept watch on Tom. The end of Kasabian had been a collective decision. Serge felt the call of other, more sophisticated kind of musics. Cinema loved him. Ian wanted to play more jazz and family was Dib’s priority. Tom – well, Tom knew it could not last forever. He was the most reluctant one to kill the monster they had bred and that threatened to swallow them; the enormous machine that had crushed the charts for ten years.  The stage was his reason to live; singing a second nature and he was as sexy at 35 as he'd been at 25. Still even he felt how much the gap was widening between the band and its audience. 

Serge was immediately swallowed by a hundred projects, flying from one continent to another, but he never forgot to call Tom, spend some time with him, crash on his couch for a movie or three, get drunk with him, listen to him, support him. Somehow, he thought, he had once accepted the mission of keeping Tom alive and sane and happy. Serge was too honest to give up on that and this, among all the things they had been through together, was the most dangerous moment of Tom’s life. Serge hired him to sing on his albums. New bands felt honored to have him as a guest star. He planned to record a solo album and Serge was keen on writing for him. Tom was a wonderful singer and Serge wanted to be able to listen to him all the time.

He did not know when Tom started to stray. He didn't see it coming. He wasn’t there maybe or he was tired of Tom’s constant restlessness. Being with Tom wore him out most of the time. He was loud and embarrassing and uncontrollable. So maybe he just looked away for a moment. There were Ennio and Amy and  friends who took a lot of Serge’s time. Tom spent more and more time with old mates from their youth and Serge had to admit that it was good to be able to breathe and stop worrying about him. Stop worrying about unexpected phone calls in the middle of the night. Stop driving around and find him drunk or stoned, throwing out, leaning against a street lamp; take him home, wash him, strip him, take him to bed, stay with him long enough to make sure he was fine and leave silently. Call early the next morning to make sure he was fine. So when Tom seemed to distance himself from Serge, Serge was indeed relieved.

Maybe, he thought later, if he’d been more attentive. If he’d been more present. If he’d loved him more and in a better way…

“There was nothing you could do, Serge,” Amy said, and Dibs added. “And after all, it was his choice.”

He’d lost tracks of Tom for what? Three months? Not completely lost track though. Common friends were still seeing him. And then Tom had come to him, sat down on a chair and said, “Listen, mate. Something happened.”

Serge frowned and stared at Tom whose face had an expression he could not read.

“Tell me,” Serge said.

Tom tapped his fingers against the table for a moment and Serge waited patiently. “Hey,” Serge said. “Come on, mate. Tell me. Is it so bad?”

Tom shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose not. I’m not sure you’ll like it.”

That, and Tom’s subdued attitude, the way he averted his eyes, froze Serge suddenly. “What the fuck happened?”

When Tom had left, later, Serge was still unable to move. Amy came to him with a drink and he saw it in her eyes – she knew.

“Tom told you,” Serge said, suddenly made furious by Tom’s duplicity. “He fucking told you.”

“He came when you weren’t home. He looked lost. He was afraid of how you’d take it.”

Serge stared at her. “It’s a joke.”

Amy took a deep breath. “I don’t think it is a joke. I think Tom’s sincere.”

Serge shrugged. “I didn’t say he wasn’t. That’s Tom. He’ll end up believing his own bullshit. In two weeks from now he’ll have forgotten everything about it.  You just wait and see.” And since Amy rolled her eyes, he added. “You’d fucking love that, wouldn’t you? That would be a relief not having Tom around any longer. I always knew you didn’t like him.”

Amy didn’t even grace that with an answer.

Tom came back and explained again, and again, until Serge was so angry that he slammed the door on him, leaving Tom out in the cold, out in the rain, feeling so bad that he knew he would get drunk afterwards - wasted. Leaning against the thick door, a bottle of whisky in his hand, he thought he could still hear Tom’s voice, hear Tom’s breath on the other side, but when he opened the door Tom was gone. He’d left his scarf though, tied around the doorknob, and a note. “I still love you. I’ll never stop. THIS is something else”

And that was the point. That was the thing Serge could not forgive – that Tom had found another love, one Serge could not fight. A battle Serge could not win.

Tom had not come back after that but Serge knew that he kept in touch with Amy and Dibs, just in case Serge would change his intransigent, narrow mind. But Serge had not, for two months.  

………………………….

It’s a long trip; Serge takes it three times a year.

“Why don’t you take Ennio with you?” Amy asks. “It would be nice. He needs to see more of his godfather.”

Serge shakes his head. As much as he adores his nine years old son, he won’t share what  little time he has with Tom. He is not going to share Tom with anyone now – other than necessary. “Another time maybe,” he says.

Amy sighs. “Fine.”

“Yeah. Fine.”

He boards a plane to Paris. Rents a car. Drives south.  Reaches the mountains above Grenoble. There are still patches of snow left. He parks his car in front of the stone porch. Walks across the cemetery, waves to the keeper iat the gate. A few minutes later he’s stepping silently in the desert cloister. From there he can see him. He thinks he will surprise him but Tom looks up from his bible just then and sees Serge. Putting the book down he rises from the bench where he was sitting and runs to him. Hugs him, laughing. “Hey mate. You came.”

“I always do,” Serge says, tightening the embrace, inhaling the familiar scent, kissing the warm cheeks softly and stepping back to take in Tom’s shining smile. He should look ridiculous in his plain brown robe, with his half-shaven skull – actually he looks wonderful.

“You’re so handsome, Serge,” Tom says, and Serge realizes he’s been feeling kind of cold for a while. He feels the warmth and the flush and Tom laughs. “Doesn’t anyone tell you anymore?”

“It’s not the same. It’s better when it comes from you.”

Tom nods like he understands…

………………..

“Not Tom!” Serge yelled, throwing everything across the room – a nice vase, a chair, a glass, rage so potent he could kill. “Why him? Such things don’t happen to Toms in this fucking world.” Amy stepped back in front of such incoherent rage, taking Ennio with her. “Wankers like Tom don’t get touched by grace! They don’t fucking sit in a church and God’s spirit gets down on them.”

Alerted, Dibs had walked into the room. “Serge…”

“No! I can’t accept that! I would have agreed to anything, accepted anything! But this! I can’t! I’d rather have him dead! At least I could mourn him! Fuck!”

After that he spent two days so wasted that no one managed to reach him, curled up in a world of his own where Tom was not to become a fucking monk – even the word sounded obscene.

“It’s a joke mate. Tell me it’s a joke. Tell me we can still fool around and get high and fuck and it’s not over.”

He was crying, yelling; when Tom made a last attempt he just curled up tighter and pulled a cushion over his ears because he did not want to hear Tom’s voice. 

A week later he got a mail in his private mailbox. “Mate. Remember when you wrote that song - thick as thieves. We promised each other we wouldn’t try and hold the other back. Set me free, Serge.”

Serge spent the night on it while Amy and Ennio slept fitfully. Eventually before dawn he took his car and drove to Tom’s place. There was a light burning in the hall so the half-formed project he’d had of just driving in the night turned into something else. He parked the car in front of the house and rang twice. The door opened after a moment that felt horribly long and Tom loomed on the threshold, waiting for him, barefoot and looking sleepy. He stepped aside to let Serge in and followed him in the living-room. It was a familiar place and Tom looked familiar and Serge had come here a million times before, slept on the couch, got drunk, high, stoned here…  Tom looked as lost as him.

Serge sat down, poured himself a drink with trembling hands. The bottle was on the table. He pointed at it with the glass. “No more of this. You know that don’t you?” He didn't mention all the other things Tom would have to give up.

Tom nodded and sat by his side. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m scared shitless, you know.”

Serge downed the drink. “Don’t do it then.”

“I don’t have a choice. It’s like… it’s like a call. It’s not something I can’t resist.”

What a shitload of crap, Serge thought. Then he remembered the message and looking at Tom he saw how exhausted he looked and terribly sad and he felt guilty.

“Tell me again, Tom. Maybe it you tell me again, I’ll understand.”

“It’s not a game, Serge. It’s for real.”

“What happened, mate? You were soaked by the rain so you looked for a shelter and the church door was open and you walked in.”

Tom stroked his chin pensively. He lost weight, Serge thought. It suits him. “I… I just went in and the storm broke outside. It was a nice church. Old enough; statues. The kind you see in Christmas movies…. I sat down on a bench. I was alone. And… That was it. I was home. It was over. Done. Dealt with. I had found the place where I was meant to be. I can’t.. I can’t explain. There were no voices. No apparitions. Nothing. Just that. I felt peaceful and quiet.” He opened his hands. “And that's about it. I just knew..." he blushes a little. "I'd found my way."

"Music is your way."

"No longer, Serge. You have to trust me. I weighed everything very carefully."

Serge tried to wrap his mind around the concept of Tom being touched by grace and failed. “And now you want to retire tino some monastery and spend your life there. Pray. Worship this God of yours.” He shook his head. “It is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. The most… stupid, life-wasting, embarrassing thing I ever heard.”

“Why?” Tom asked.

“You know why.”

Tom did not try to discuss that. He just looked down. “You don’t want me to go. You’re holding me back.”

Serge rose, paced the room. “Oh come on mate! You don’t need my…” he’d almost said blessing. He cleared his throat. “You don’t need permission. You’re thirty-six. You’re a fucking adult.”

“Am I? Most of the time you treat me like I’m a kid, mate! No wait - even a kid would get more respect from you.”

There was not much Serge could say to that. He shook his head. “I won’t hold you back. Go if you want to go. I don’t have a say in this; it’s your life.”

Tom smiled. “But our lives they’ve been so fucking intricate all the time. Do you think it’s so simple? It’s breaking my heart mate. Leaving you behind… “

He broke into tears, sobs wracking his back, his face buried in his hands. Tom was the least manipulative guy in the world – the tears were sincere. He was breaking down over this and Serge knew he had lost the fight.

Rising from the armchair he stepped up to Tom and crouched in front of him. “You don’t need my permission, Tom,” he said. “If this… Call is so strong, why ask me? You’ll leave anyway.”

Tom wiped his face and looked into Serge’s eyes. “Yeah. Sure. But it would make it all so much easier if you agreed to it, you know.”

Serge ran his thumb along Tom’s cheekbone, wiping away a last tear. “Yeah. Sure. Listen… I don’t know what to say. If it’s what you want… Go then. Do it. I wanna know you’re happy.”

The way Tom’s eyes lit up … Serge’s heart constricted painfully and the question that had been piercing him was back. He had to ask.

“Just tell me, mate… Is it about me? Would it have been different if I’d loved you? I mean… Like a lover? If we’d been together like lovers? Married? Fuck, you know what I mean.”

Tom looked at him for a long time. He wrapped his hand around Serge’s hand and he said, “Thank God that didn’t happen because I don’t know how I’d have found the strength to leave you behind then, mate.” He smiled that all encompassing smile. “It has nothing to do with you, Serge. This … It’s just God’s will, ya know. I never expected it. But faith, mate… It’s something better than any drug. Better than anything.”

Serge refrained from protesting. Tom hugged him the way he always had. And that was it.

................................

Serge is thankful that Tom did not choose one of those  orders where you can’t talk to monks except from behind a curtain and only once every two years. if you're lucky. Tom’s order, from what he knows, is a rather joyous one. Of course the feeling of Tom praying six times a day in a century old chapel and spending hours kneeling on the cold tiles of said chapel still disturbs him. Serge doesn't deal very well with faith. Tom's faith. At least he still sings; the prior told Serge so the first time he met him. "Brother Thomas has the most beautiful voice I ever heard. His voice never fails to move the whole community." The rumour says two young probationers finally took their vows after hearing Tom sing. Serge can't quite dismiss the possibility.

“It makes sense, you know,” Serge tells Tom during one of his visits. They are walking along the path leading from the monastery to the ruins of an older church where they like to sit. “You were always generous and altruist and compassionate. You never really behaved like a star. I should have seen you were a saint,” he taunts.

Tom hits him in the stomach. “Shut up, Serge. I ain’t no saint,” he says, blushing, and Serge can’t help but gather him in his arms and hug him for a very long time. “I need this,” he says, his voice trembling. “This is what helps me going through all this time with you.”

Tom hugs back, melting in Serge’s embrace.

“I thought you’d give up, you know, after a while. Come back to us. I always underestimated you,” Serge confesses. And indeed when Tom decided to take his vows, a year ago, Serge felt his last hope crumble. He has absolutely no memories of the days that followed and when Tom’s mother wanted to tell him how wonderful the ceremony had been, he had to leave the room. He hoped she didn’t tell Tom about it.

“Leaving you was the hardest sacrifice I ever made, Serge,” Tom says seriously when they part. “I still miss you sometimes.”

Strangely those words make Serge feel better – he will take any reassurance he can get.

Before Serge leaves Tom gives him a huge bottle of the liquor they make here. It’s green and sweet and very strong. “Enjoy it,” Tom says with a smile. “It’s not quite absinthe but it should do.”

It will take some days after that before Serge can resume his ordinary life, forget about the peace and the happiness he reads in Tom’s eyes.

“I’m happy for you mate,” he tells him. And this is a new feeling that makes him feel warm and at peace. He knows he should thank Tom for this.

 

 

 

 


End file.
